Decorative article



Jan. 13, 1942. FR NKE DECORATIVE ARTICLE Filed May 13, 1941 INVENTOR ARDP. FRANKIE ATTORNEY Patented Jan. 13, 1942 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICEDECORATIVE ARTICLE Edward P. Franke, Baltimore, Md.

Application May 13, 1941, Serial No. 393,195

7 Claims. (Cl. 41-10) The present invention relates to decorativearticles. More particularly it relates to decorative articles havingdistinctive and/or representative forms.

Artificial articles, such as miniature Christmas trees, have been madeheretofore by shaping a supporting member from wood, building it up fromcardboard or the like and covering the member by spiralling a flexibledecorative material, for example, of the type commonly known as hanokarope, about the frame member until it is covered. Such articles havebeen expensive to make, however, in view of the cost of producing thesolid or at least continuous supporting members, and such articles havealso been expensive to transport because of their weight. Furthermore,these articles were relatively fragile and any crushing of the articlestended to fracture or otherwise deform the supporting members whichruined the articles because of it being impossible to bend or otherwisereshape the frangible supporting members.

It is an object of the present inventionto provide a decorative articlehaving a distinctive and/or representative form which is free from allof the foregoing undesirable features.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a decorativearticle having a distinctive and/or representative form which is lightin weight and, at the same time, is strong and capable of being reshapedif crushed or otherwise deformed.

It is also an object of the present invention to provide a decorative,light-weight article in the form of a basket or other container whichhas sufl'icient strength to retain small objects placed therein.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a decorativarticle of distinctive and/or representative form which presents amaximum of strength and attractiveness with a minimum of solidity.

Other objects and advantages, if not particularly specified, will beapparent to those skilled in the art from the following detaileddescription of what are now considered the preferred embodiments of theinvention.

The article of the invention in general comprises a skeleton frame workformed of relatively stiff members, such as metallic wires, and acovering disposed over the frame work comprising at least in part adecorative garland material comprising two or more relatively stiffstrands twisted together and a web of decorative material disposedbetween the strand members and spiralled therebetween and formed into amultiplicity of overlapping folds. The form of the decorative articlemay be varied as desired to produce distinctive articles and/orrepresent various 0 jects.

For a fuller understanding of the nature and objects of the invention,reference should be had to the following detailed description taken inconnection with the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an article of the present invention inthe form of a basket;

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of an article of the present invention inthe form of a bell;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary view of the garland material used in fabricatingthe articleof the present invention, and

Fig. 4 is a fragmentary perspective view of a skeleton structure of anarticle of the present invention.

The article of the present invention which is illustrated in Fig. 1 as abasket, comprises a skeleton frame work I0 which may be shaped asillustrated in Fig. 4. The skeleton frame work In of this embodiment ofthe invention comprises a plurality of wires, in this particularinstance three wires, I2, I and I6. Each of the Wires is bentsubstantially in the shape of a U, and is provided with hooks I8 at theextremities of the legs of the U and outwardly curved portions 20substantially at the base of each U. The members I2, l4 and 16 arepositioned so that their bases cross substantially at a central point 22and may be suitably fastened together at this point, for example, bymeans of a drop of solder or a short length of wire. As an alternativeto the central fastening, or in addition thereto, 'a base member 24 inthe form of a piece of light cardboard or the like may be placed withinthe legs of the members l2, l4 and I5 and retained in place byfrictional contact with the members.

The skeleton frame work previously described is covered by spirallingthereabout a length of decorative garland material of the type disclosedin United States Patent No. 2,234,338. This type of garland material isillustrated in Fig. 3 and comprises at least two relatively stiffstrands 26 whichare twisted together and grip one or more lengths of webmaterial 28 which is spiralled between the strands 26 and is disposed ina multiplicity of overlapping folds. The web material may be any of thematerials described in. said' patent but the most brilliant andattractive deco-v rative effects are produced when Cellophane is usedfor the web material.

The strand material 30 is preferably disposed over the skeleton framework by positioning the first convolution of the spiral within the legsof the U shaped members [2, I4 and I6 and within the curved portions 20,and wrapping the other convolutions of the spiral on the outside of theleg portions of the members [2, l4 and I6, and positioning the upperconvolution of the spiral under the hooks I8 of the leg members l2, l4and IS. The end of the spiral may be secured by wrapping the coremembers 26 about the un-E derlying convolution or about one of the wiremembers l2, l4 or IE. It is convenient to defer formation of the hooks18 until the last convolution of the spiral is in position, and thehooks may then be formed by bending the extremities of the legs of themembers l2, l4 and I6 down about the core of the upper convolution ofthe spiral. The hooks l8 and the curved portion 20 bury themselves inthe folds of the web material and are thereby rendered invisible fromthe outside.

Although the decorative article may be formed substantially entirely byhand, as previously described, the articles may be more accurately andmore rapidly produced by shaping a mandrel into the general form whichthe article is to take, mounting the mandrel for rotation about acentral axis and forming the decorative article thereon by shaping thewire members of the skeleton frame work over the mandrel and thenapplying the garland material in a, spiral over the frame work byrotating the mandrel either by hand or by power. The formed article isthen removed from the mandrel in substantially completed form. Thelowermost spiral of the article covering may be positioned within thewire frame members l2, l4 and I6, as illustrated in Fig. 4, when using amandrel by applying the first convolution of the spiral to the mandrelbefore the wires l2, l4 and I6 are positioned over the mandrel.

After the body of the basket is formed, a handle 32 may be applied bysuitably shaping a length of the garland material 30 and attaching thestrands 26 at the ends of the length of garland material to the corestrands of a convolution of the spiral covering near the top of thebasket. The stiffness of the strands 26 is sufficient to maintain thehandle 32 in position and permit it to be lifted and carried about, evenwhen the basket is filled with various small articles.

The decorative article illustrated in Fig. 2 is made in substantiallythe same manner as the basket of Fig. 1, except the wire members of theskeleton frame work are, of course, bent so as to outline the shape of abell and, when a mandrel is used to form the hell, it is likewise shapedto give the proper contour to the finished article. Also, instead of ahandle, a length of strand material 30 is fastened near the top of thebell to form a ring 34 in the same manner as the handle 32 was attachedto the basket of Fi 1.

It is to be understood that the basket of Fig. 1 and the bell of Fig. 2have been disclosed for the purpose of explanation only and are not tobe considered as limitations on the invention, since the articles of thepresent invention may represent many objects, such as Christmas trees;Santa Clauses; card figures such as diamonds, hearts and the like; dogs;rabbits, and other animals, and many other objects both animate andinanimate.

It is within the purview of the present invention to form only a part ofa decorative object from "the garland material and use other types ofmaterials to form the remainder of the object for the purpose ofsecuring contrasting visual effects, such as various designs, as well asproducing novel structural shapes and effects.

In the production of some of the more complicated forms, such as a SantaClaus or a Scottie dog, it may be necessary to make the object in .twoor more sections which may be suitably fastened together by wires, clipsor the like.

The decorative articles of the present invention are extremely light inweight since a solid supporting member is not required and at the sametime are rigid, due to the cooperation between the stiff frame membersand the stiff core of the garland material which forms the covering.This enables the articles to support small objects such as toys, candiesand the like, which renders the decorative articles well suited to serveas party favors, Easter baskets, gift boxes, souvenirs and the like.Furthermore, the articles are capable of being reshaped in the event ofdistortion due to crushing or the like incidental to transportation orstorage, and, in addition the brilliance of the garland materialproduces unparalled decorative effects which cannot even be approachedby any of the other materials heretofore used in the production ofdecorative articles.

Since certain changes may be made in the above article and differentembodiments of the invention could be made without departing from thescope thereof, it is intended that all matter contained in the abovedescription or shown in the accompanying drawing shall be interpreted asillustrative and not in a limiting sense.

The invention having been described, what is claimed is: I

1. A decorative article comprising a skeleton frame work, a coveringdisposed over the frame work comprising a decorative material formed ofa plurality of stiff strands twisted together and a Web of flexiblematerial spiralled between the strands and disposed in a multiplicity ofoverlapping folds, the decorative material being spiralled about theframework and the stiff strands thereof cooperating with the skeletonframe work to form a rigid structure.

2. A decorative article comprising a stiff skeleton frame work, acovering disposed over the frame work comprising a decorative materialformed of a relatively stiff core and overlapping folds of flexiblematerial radiating from the core, the decorative material beingspiralled about the frame work and the stiff core thereof cooperatingwith the stiff skeleton structure to form a rigid article.

3. A decorative article comprising a stiff skeleton structure, acovering disposed over said structure and formed at least in part by agarland spiralled about the skeleton structure, the garland comprising aplurality of metallic wires twisted together and a web of Cellophanespiralled between the wires and disposed in a multiplicity ofoverlapping folds, the stiff metallic Wires cooperating with the stiffskeleton structure to form a rigid structure.

4. A decorative basket comprising a stiff frame work, a coveringdisposed over the frame work and formed at least in part by a decorativegarland having a stiff core and overlapping folds of flexible materialradiating from the core, the stifi core cooperating with the frame workto form a rigid basket.

5. A decorative basket comprising a stifi frame work, a coveringdisposed over the frame work and formed at least in part by a decorativegarland having a still core and overlappin folds of flexible materialradiating from the core, the stifi core cooperating with the frame workto form a rigid basket, and a handle carried by the basket formed of alength of the garland.

6. A decorative bell comprising a stiff frame work, a covering disposedover the frame Work and formed at least in part by a decorative garlandhaving a still core and overlapping folds of flexible material radiatingfrom the core, the stiff core cooperating with the frame work to form arigid bell.

7. A decorative article having a distinctive and/or representative formcomprising a relatively stiff skeleton frame work, a covering disposedover the frame work and formed at least in part of a decorative garlandcomprising a plurality of metallic wires twisted together and a web offlexible material spiralled between the wires and disposed in amultiplicity of overlapping folds, said web having a length 5 to 20times the length of the Wires and the wires cooperating with the framework to form a rigid article.

EDWARD P. FRANKE.

